News Highlights For the Record Gov 2.0 Summit: Advocate Calls USASpending Data 'Useless' Transfer of US biometric database to Iraq raises concerns Watchdog group gives Obama mixed review on openness El Paso intel center error causes couple's arrest at gunpoint White House Blocks Disclosure of Secret Intellectual Property Trade Text Accounting Board Seeks Public Proceedings Treasury Research Office Will Have Power to Unlock Wall Street's Secrets FISA Court Proposes New Court Rules SEC FOIA loophole tightens GAO access to intel in dispute Of Interest
NEWS: Challenge.gov seeks to expand public's engagement NEWS: Court: Judges can demand warrant for cell locales NEWS: New lawsuit to challenge laptop searches at U.S. border NEWS: FCC posts data sets, plans site redesign to be more like a dot-com ANNOUNCEMENT: Public Consultation on access to information and open government data NEWS: Alex Howard
Bringing open government to courts NEWS: FCC.gov poised for an overdue overhaul NEWS: Darpa's Star Hacker Looks to WikiLeak-Proof Pentagon NEWS: U.S. Nuclear Stockpile Secrecy: A View from 1949 NEWS: NASA opens photo-sharing site NEWS: FDA unveils performance management site NEWS: Interior Posts Only Half of a Scientific Integrity Policy NEWS: Government ethics office reorganizing site to make policies easier to digest NEWS: Report says Congress needs lots of help with Web sites COMMENTARY: 'Pentagon's cybersecurity plans have a Cold War chill
[Government Executive: Management Matters, September 8, 2010]
[Information Week, September 7, 2010; see also the remarks]
[The Lift, September 6, 2010]
[NextGov, September 7, 2010]
[Washington Post: Spy Talk, September 7, 2010]
[Huffington Post, September 3, 2010]
[Wall Street Journal (subscription req'd), September 3, 2010]
[Bloomberg, September 2, 2010]
[Secrecy News, September 2, 2010]
[Federal News Radio, September 1, 2010]
[Washington Post: Top Secret America, September 1, 2010]
[Federal Computer Week, 9.7.10]
[AP via Google News, 9.7.10]
[Washington Post, 9.7.10]
[NextGov, 9.7.10]
[Access Info Europe, 9.6.10]
[O'Reilly Radar, 9.6.10]
[O'Reilly Radar, 9.2.10]
[Wired: Danger Room, 8.31.10]
[Secrecy News, 9.2.10]
[Federal Computer Week, 8.31.10]
[Government Executive, 8.31.10]
[Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 8.31.10]
[NextGov, 8.30.10]
[Federal Computer Week, 8.30.10]
[Washington Post,8.26.10]
Let's Reverse the Pattern of Secrecy
Concerned that our government keeps from the American public information that we need to make our families safe, secure our country and strengthen democracy, a broad-based set of organizations formed OpenTheGovernment.org. We hope you'll help.
Read our 2009 Year End Report.
Read our 2010- 2012 Strategic Plan.
On Tuesday, September 7, OpenTheGovernment.org released the 2010 Secrecy Report Card 2010 Secrecy Report Card, a quantitative report on indicators of government secrecy. The report chronicles a continued decrease in most indicators of secrecy since the end of the Bush Administration and growing backlogs in the declassification system as old secrets move through the system. The report covers the first 9 months of President Obama's Administration. According to Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, "The 2008 elections were largely seen as a referendum on the extreme secrecy of the last Administration. On his first full day in office, President Obama pledged his Administration would be the most open, transparent and accountable in history. The Secrecy Report Card helps the public monitor the progress, or lack thereof, the President makes toward that goal."
Read the press release here.
The Open Government Directive required agencies to develop and publish Open Government Plans by April 7th. OpenTheGovernment.org, our partners, and others used the requirements in the Directive to evaluate the strength of the Open Government Plans.
Our initial audit found that many of the Open Government Plans produced by the agencies failed to fulfill the basic requirements outlined in the OGD. In light of the ample room for improvement, OpenTheGovernment.org invited revisions to the plans by June 25 for re-evaluation.
On June 20, the coalition released the updated results, and an updated ranking of the plans, from strongest to weakest. The updated results also include evaluations of plans created by agencies that were not required to do so, but did anyway.
Read our press release here
Later this year, we will begin evaluating the implementation of open government in the agencies.
As part of the effort to make the federal government a more open place, OpenTheGovernment.org works with our coalition partners and other advocates to highlight important issues and correct systemic problems. Keep up with our latest:
On March 10th, OpenTheGovernment.org and 45 organizations concerned with transparency and accountability sent a letter to the Information Policy Subcommittees in the Senate
and House
to hold hearings on the apparent destruction of
emails in the Department of Justice to determine how the e-mails could be missing despite the requirements of the
Federal Records Act (FRA), and if the FRA needs further strengthening.
Click on the links for OpenTheGovernment.org's Sunshine Week program and for a hand-out, "The White House on Transparency." For details, including a full list of panelists, click here.
On Tuesday, September 9,2009, OpenTheGovernment.org released the 2009 Secrecy Report Card. Read the press release here. Also, download the FOIA Risk Assessment Chart, an assessment of changes in FOIA practices by the Bush and Obama Administrations, and the expanded fiscal transparency section.